Gently closing the door behind him, Ega locked it with the key. Going down the flight of creaking steps, he noticed that most of the people who were hanging around had already returned home. The rest were just lingering around, not much time before they would start leaving as well.

  Despite how long the disappearances have been going on for, it seemed like a large part of Ashier didn’t feel too threatened by it. Did they already know that it only happened around the slums? Or could there be something else at play?

  Shoving the thought aside, Ega stepped out into the dead of night. There was barely any light illuminating the streets save for a few lanterns hanging on the walls. The moonlight could barely pierce through the dark veil of the streets, allowing only for people to see a few feet ahead of themselves.

  Some stumbled around in the dark, others came prepared with an oil lantern, and Ega had an owl’s soul mixed into his own. He retraced his steps, quickly making his way back to the edge of the slums. As he arrived however, he noticed something strange.

  ‘There are knights on patrol?’ He could hear the faint clicking of armor and the warm glow of light drifting through the streets. ‘Shit.’

  If he was caught roaming around in the night like this, he would only draw suspicion to himself. Even if he could stay hidden from the knights for the length of his investigation, they would get in the way by dissuading whoever was causing these disappearances to veer their head out.

  Ega fell into deep thought, trying to figure out how to salvage this situation. Trying to place himself in the shoes of the hunter, he tried to think about how they would approach the situation.

  ‘If there were knights patrolling an area, how would I slip past them to kidnap someone?’ As he tried to piece together the possible methods, Ega suddenly remembered one of the stories that he had been eavesdropping on.

  Why slip past the knights when you can hunt down the knights themselves? He had remembered an old lady talking about how even the knights themselves weren’t safe. Her son had disappeared while on patrol, and it seemed like he wasn’t the only one.

  ‘I can use them as bait.’ Ega thought.

  Whoever was causing these disappearances seemed like they needed humans for something, whether that be the body, mind, or soul. It didn’t really matter what their goal was, he could take advantage of it. It was a good move, getting what you want while trying to dissuade your enemy from investigating any further.

  The plan had already worked. Most of the knights seemed to be patrolling the edge of the slums, too scared to go any deeper to do a proper investigation.

  Ega was beginning to readjust his plan with the new information. He could use the knights as bait to draw out the culprit to these disappearances. Though it was a bit of a gamble, it was better than just aimlessly roaming around until he spotted something.

  Mixing the soul of a cat into his own, he leaped onto the buildings and began to survey the area. Picking out a group of three knights, he began to follow them. His steps were silent as he leaped from roof to roof, quickly catching up to their position.

  As he stood above them, watching them and nearby patrollers, Ega got another idea. He could make the target even more enticing by splitting up the knights. Even a group of three might be too much, but if it was just one knight, they would be the perfect target.

  Dropping from the roof, Ega picked up a few pebbles off the ground and started to get to work.

  “Hey, did you hear that?” One of the knights turned their head toward a strange “thunk” sound.

  “You think that was—” The other knight’s words were cut short as he spotted a shadowy figure suddenly dash across his field of view. “Over there! Quick!”

  The knight drew his sword and quickly led the way to where he had spotted the shadowy figure. As his comrades were following however, Ega took the moment of panic to strike at one of the knights.

  As the knight was running, he quickly picked one off from the shadows, cupping the man’s mouth in his hands before knocking him unconscious.

  Once the other two knights had arrived at the spot where they had spotted Ega’s shadowy figure, they realized that their comrade was missing.

  “Where did Alta go?” They started to dart their gazes around the area, unable to spot their friend.

  “I don’t…” Panic began to befall the two of them.

  Ega pushed them further over the edge. Drawing his bow and arrow, he shot at the lantern in both of the knight’s hands, plunging them into the eternal darkness.

  “What the hell!” Both of them looked toward the direction of the arrows, but Ega had already disappeared.

  “Wait, I see something over there!” One of the knights ran off, chasing after Ega’s shadow.

  “What are you… Hal, where did you go?” Hal had left his friend behind, leaving him standing frozen in place. “Hal?”

  But Hal would not respond, for Ega had already done the same to him as he did to the previous knight.

  ‘Perfect, just one knight left.’ With his bait perfectly prepared, all he needed to do now was cast the line.

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  Having taken the oil lantern from the first knight, he began to lure the last remaining knight deeper into the slums.

  “Hal? Alta? Is that you?” The knight spotted a dim light in the distance. Noticing that it was slowly moving away, he quickly chased after it. “Come back here! We have to regroup!”

  Running around for a few minutes, the knight had finally caught up with escaping light. As he did however, he noticed something strange. There was no one holding the lantern. In fact, it was just sitting on the ground, slowly burning itself out.

  “Hal? Alta? Where did you…” Picking up the lantern, a sudden sense of dread began to befall him. The realization that he was alone and lost in the middle of the slums had struck him. “Hello? Is anyone from the Order around?”

  There was no response to his words. With what little courage the knight had left, he began to roam the streets using the dim light that he had in hand. Ega watched from a distance like an angler fish waiting for the moment its prey was close enough to the light.

  It was the perfect bait. A lone knight patrolling deep into the slums, probably lost due to the darkness. Unless he was missing something, this would lure out the culprit to all of the disappearances.

  Still, Ega kept his field of vision wide over the slums. There was no guarantee that this knight would become the prey. With his bow ready, he followed the knight as he tried to find a way out of the slums.

  There were others roaming around as well, some were drunkards, others were bandits, and as Ega observed them, he noticed a missing group, the homeless. There was no one sleeping on the ruined streets, no hapless individuals who couldn’t even afford a house in the slums.

  ‘Had they all been kidnapped or…’ Ega began to wonder as he observed all of the living bait roaming the streets.

  The night drew on in silence as nothing significant occurred. Ega was starting to feel the strain in his eyes as he tried to keep track of so many different things with eyes that weren’t completely his own. Nearly an hour had passed, and just before he was about to give up, something began to move from the corner of his eyes.

  The figure was fast, scurrying through the streets like a rat. They would soon bear their claws, however, as they pounced on a drunkard roaming the streets.

  ‘Shit.’ Ega was positioned far away from the shadowy figure, having stuck closer to the knight still trying to find his way out of the slums.

  Once the drunkard was in the cloaked person’s hands, they began to scurry away with their prey. Ega followed them from a distance, slowly gaining some distance as he ran and leaped from roof to roof.

  As he got close enough, he began to nock an arrow waiting for the shadowy figure to move down a straight street. Focusing on the figure’s trajectory, he released the arrow, letting its whistle pierce through the silent night.

  The arrow struck its target, piercing through its tattered cloak and stopping it in its tracks. The figure fell over, stumbling for some distance before turning its gaze toward their pursuer.

  Ega was rapidly closing the distance, having mixed his souls even deeper as he ran. Drawing his blade, he prepared himself for a vicious clash.

  Before he could get close enough however, the cloaked figure quickly tore the arrow out of their body before running away again with their prey. Somehow, they hadn’t grown any slower despite the injury. Instead, it seemed like they were becoming faster.

  Seeing this, Ega began to burn away one of his souls. With a surge of power flowing through his veins, he dashed forward with all his might, appearing beside the shadowy figure in an instant. Ega slashed his sword, bringing his escaping target to a halt.

  As he did however, he noticed something strange about his attack. He had cut into plenty of people before. He knew what it felt like to run a blade through human flesh and bone depending on where he struck. It was because of this knowledge that he realized that whoever he was cutting into now was not human.

  The cloaked figure let out a horrifying scream as its flesh was cleaved into. Clasping its claw-like hands onto Ega’s blade to try and hold him in place, it struck back, not with blades, but with flesh.

  Tendrils popped out from the back of its cloak, shooting themselves towards Ega. Without much of a choice, he let go of his sword to dodge the monstrous attack. Once he had created some distance, he began to see the creature much more clearly.

  Underneath the shadows of the cloak was a human figure stitched together with parts of other creatures. Its flesh was warped and re-written to blend all the parts together, and from its back emerged tendrils of flesh and sinew.

  “What is this monster? A homunculi? No… chimera?” Ega couldn’t help but let the shock escape from his mouth.

  “No I… human…” The figure suddenly responded, its voice uneven and constantly shifting in pitch.

  With its claws still on Ega’s sword, the monster tore it out of its body, throwing it off to the side. The large wound began to mend itself, the mix of flesh and muscle snapping together again.

  No time to go for his sword, Ega took a dagger into each hand, getting ready to strike before the monster could fully heal itself. Just before he could dash, however, the tendrils began to move again, keeping him at bay.

  He slowly trimmed them down with his blades, weaving in-between the strikes as he slashed back. Despite his efforts however, the monster shot needles of bones toward Ega before dashing away. He dodged the attack, but with an opening being created, the monster began to sprint away.

  With such an endless amount of stamina, there was no way Ega could catch up with that monster. Still, there was one last thing he could do.

  Climbing onto the roof of a crumbling building, he began to sharpen his eyes as much as he could. His field of vision began to expand across the entirety of the slums and the details of every brick, every plank of wood, every roof tile began to pierce his eyes.

  Catching sight of the monster running, Ega continued to track its movements the best he could. Taking an arrow from his quiver, he nocked his arrow and took aim. After tracking his opponent for half a minute, they disappeared from his sights.

  “One… Two… Three.” With his target being gone for three seconds, Ega drew back the bow string and shot the arrow.

  The moment he did, Ega shut his eyes, letting out a groan due to the strain he was putting on his eyes. Borrowing the eyes of an owl and sharpening it to such an extreme was just too much for even someone like him.

  Pressing his hands against his eyelids, Ega waited until his eyes stopped throbbing. He waited for a few minutes, and though it still stung, he pried them open. Through his watery eyes, he caught sight of the arrow he had shot.

  It stuck itself onto a roof far away, a marker to where he had lost sight of his target. Though it was a bit of a gamble, Ega figured that he could gather some information where his arrow had landed.

  Jumping down from the roof, he dragged himself over to his sword. Picking it up, he flicked his wrist, splattering the monster’s blood against the ground. He stared at the blood for a few seconds, trying to process everything that had just occurred.

  Some kind of homunculi or chimera, Ega wasn’t quite sure what that thing was. Still, he had to push forward so that when the Outers descended upon them, he could be confident that the sun would rise over the horizon again. And for that to happen, he had to face, not only this night, but many more to come.